Deborah Z. Altschuler.
In the early 1900s, the French physician, bacteriologist, and Nobel Prize winner Dr. Charles Nicolle (1866-1936, Figure 1) engaged in scientific research on louse-borne epidemic typhus, which was prevalent in Europe and North Africa. Dr. Nicolle documented the ability of both the human body louse and the human head louse, Pediculus humanus, to transmit typhus. Scientific researchers Anderson, Goldberger, Murray, and Snyder, among others (https://www.headlice.org/comb/zinsser-project/zinsser-lice-and-history/) identified the head louse as a vector of the disease. Yet recent journal articles appear inconclusive on the capability of head lice to transmit disease, overlooking the conclusions of the early scientific trailblazers.
See full article at: https://www.headlice.org/comb/zinsser-project/human-head-lice-and-their-ability-to-transmit-disease/.